Mistakes you make with your customer service and how to fix them

Although most companies are starting to implement good business practices, they may make mistakes that can have a negative impact on their brand awareness.

Your customers expect a lot from your business – you probably already know that. Treat them well, in good times and bad, and they could become your most loyal brand ambassadors. However, if you let your customer service slip or fail at any point, then the story could be very different.

Providing excellent customer service is not an option or a luxury; it is a standard your customers expect. The customer experience can win you many new customers or put you out of business, depending on how it goes. Taking care of and addressing customer needs is vital to success. However, if they are overwhelmed and overcrowded with tasks, teams often struggle to deliver results and build relationships with customers.

While some companies are starting to apply good business practices, they may make mistakes that can have a negative impact on their brand awareness. Often, companies get sucked into a false sense of security by seeing decent business results, but there are no customer relationships behind them, so in the long run, the business may not be profitable.

Customer service mistakes

Let’s see some common customer service mistakes and how you can fix them and avoid them in the future.

Unavailability for customers

This is the pain point for your customers! Your customers may be in different time zones and would like issues to be resolved immediately. Customers have to be able to contact you whenever they need to. They lose trust and your company's reputation takes a hit when they can't contact you. Hiring the right staff and implementing a Chatbot is a very useful solution to manage all incoming customer queries. At times, customers would like to talk to you over the phone and make things right. Place your phone number on your website in an area that is easy to locate.

Missing data

Data is all around us. What you need to do is to select it and go into deep analysis. The more data you have, the better services you can offer. On a smaller scale, you may not see much difference, but when you have thousands of customers around the world, you need to optimize certain processes. You need to constantly have data available about your customers and your team's performance to identify potential problems that both your customers and your team members may be experiencing.

You do not keep your promises

Your customers will start to frown when you promise a lot and don't keep your promises. It will be a good experience for them if the opposite happens. In a perfect world, the product should do what you said it would do. It's always best to inform the customer about the delayed progress and also apologize if your team is unable to deliver on the commitment.

Not delivering omnichannel support

Your customers reach you from multiple channels. It can be a phone conversation, a live chat, or social media. You can't force a customer to use a particular channel. Companies with omnichannel support recorded a whopping 89% customer retention rate compared to companies that did not offer omnichannel support, recording only 33% customer retention.

Not having a plan B

Technology is great and can make life easier, but what if something goes wrong? You need an action plan for times of emergency to ensure customers are aware and supported.

Dissatisfied and poorly trained staff

If employees feel appreciated and that an investment has been made in their training and wellbeing, this will show in every interaction they have with clients. Happy employees mean happy customers.

Not provide customers what they want

Customers want accurate answers or quick, efficient, and respectful solutions, and giving them to the customer is the most important thing, even if the answer or solution is not ideal.

Fixing mistakes when they happen

No one is perfect. Whether through lack of concentration, understanding, guidance, or diligence, mistakes will happen. The key is knowing how to correct the situation when it has happened and ensuring that the customer still receives the best customer service, despite some bumps in the road to resolution.

Evaluate your customer service

A great way to review your customer service is to put yourself in the place of your customers. One of the easiest ways to get started is to try it for yourself! Give them a call and see what happens. Experience the way your automation works and how quickly you are served. If this works for your business model, consider introducing regular “mystery shopper" style calls to monitor quality and provide feedback to teams.

Success when it comes to customer service is all about focusing on personal communication. It's about having common thinking across teams and speaking with one voice. And it's about making the whole process as easy as possible for customers so they feel valued, listened to, and encouraged to praise you to others. Focus on getting these basics right and you'll already be ahead of the game.

Giving your customers excellent customer service is not an option or a luxury; it is a standard they expect. Avoid the common customer service mistakes and stand out from the competition.

Also, discover how you can upgrade your customer support, increase your sales and more by using effective customer profiling.